


Of Dragons and Ice

by afterandalasia



Category: Frozen (2013), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe – 19th Century, Arendelle, Community: disney_kink, Crossover, Dragons, Elsa Has Ice Powers, Flying, Gen, Interspecies Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Night Furies, Post-Frozen (2013), Post-How To Train Your Dragon (2010), Terrible Terrors, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 13:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1429504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There aren't many folks brave enough to live out on Berk, so close to the land of the dragons, and in truth there has always been a little admiration of them from Arendelle. Once Elsa becomes Queen, she makes sure to reach out to the little island nation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Dragons and Ice

**Author's Note:**

> From the anonymous [prompt](http://disney-kink.livejournal.com/9516.html?thread=6190892#t6190892) at Disney Kink.

It was probably not all that common for diplomatic meetings to involve several large barrels of fish and a strict ban on eels, flammable oils, and any sort of pointed object. It had taken quite a while to persuade the guards that they were not allowed anything with a sharp edge when they accompanied their Queen and Princess down to the docks.

It was Anna who put an end to it all. "I think the Queen is capable of looking after herself," she said, crossing her arms and tapping one foot. She gave them a vaguely disappointed look that made them, to a man, look embarrassed. A couple examined their feet. Elsa managed through her years of training to not laugh at their expressions, and counted it as a success on the whole.

Most of the visitors from Berk arrived by boat, and one was fished out of the water after something of a crash landing. Crash landing, that was, from _dragon-back_.

"Okay, okay," said the boy with the prosthetic lower leg and the smart-looking harness. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Elsa had been told, the son of the chief of Berk but very much their leading figure now that there were dragons involved. "Don't look him in the eye, just reach out your hand. Let me..."

He took hold of her hand to move it, and Elsa almost looked at him in astonishment. She certainly heard some uncomfortable mutters from her guard, and shot them a glance from beneath her hair to settle them down again.

"Wow," Hiccup was saying. "Your hands are cold. Yeah, like that, palm out."

He straightened out her fingers, tilting her palm up slightly, and extended it in the direction of the dragon. It grumbled, and Elsa held her breath even as she stood her ground, one arm outstretched. It was difficult to be told that she could not even look at her hand as she reached out towards the great black reptile sitting on the waterfront.

It huffed. She felt the rush of hot breath over her hand, the edge of her sleeve melting before she caught and reformed it once again.

"Toothless, this is Queen Elsa of Arendelle," said Hiccup. "Be nice."

Of all the strange things in Elsa's life, hearing somebody tell a dragon to be _nice_ was probably quite high on the list. Her lungs were starting to burn when she finally felt a soft butt against her hand, a touch of smooth, slightly warm scales.

She gasped, and looked up without thinking. The dragon's eyes snapped open, and it snapped back with a snort.

"Woah, woah!" Before she could even say anything, the boy jumped between them. "It's okay, it's okay. She's a friend. _Friend_."

The dragon gave him a look that managed to be almost human in how unimpressed it was. It plunked itself back on its hind legs, and used one massive forepaw to nudge Hiccup out of the way so that Elsa was fully in its view again.

"Hello, Toothless," she said. She extended her hand fully, turning it over so that the palm was facing upwards.

Toothless was not the largest dragon in the group, but it - _he_ \- was in some ways the most _dragon-like_ of them all. Sleek and black and aerodynamic, with intelligence in his eyes that the others did not seem to have. The ambassador from Berk whom Elsa had asked to talk about dragons had called him a _Night Fury_ , a rare, fast, powerful sort. And the first to be trained.

Elsa had decided there and then that if she was going to make an impression on the people of Berk - and the dragons of Berk for that matter - she was going to have to greet Toothless before any of the others.

For a moment, Toothless regarded her with huge, gold-green eyes, head cocked and ears tilted back. Then slowly his ears came upright again, he slunk down onto all fours, and stepped forwards to rest his chin in her hand. A deep, rumbling chirp sounded from deep in his throat.

"Hey there." Elsa gently scratched the great dragon beneath his chin, and was rewarded with lazy, half-closed eyes and another huff.

Hiccup gave a surprised laugh. "Looks like he likes you."

"He's gorgeous," said Elsa. She moved her scratching fingers up to the corner of Toothless's jaw, and the dragon rumbled. His eyes closed completely, and one front foot twitched off the ground. "The ambassador said that Night Furies could be..."

"A bit skittish," said Hiccup dryly. "But it could just be him. He's the only one so far."

Toothless murred, shook his head as if waking up, and took a step backwards. Elsa let her hand fall back to her side again and chuckled, looking round to Hiccup. "Well. I am honoured to make your - and Toothless's - acquaintance."

Hiccup bowed. "Your Majesty."

The bow prompted an uncertain chirp from Toothless, who regarded them with raised ears. The rest of the Berk Vikings were standing a little further back, only supporting Elsa's suspicions that Hiccup was the one leading them into the unknown. The Vikings had traditionally been an insular, almost isolationist group, and considering Arendelle had hardly been that open in recent years it had almost seemed a strange idea to reach out to them among the first Kingdoms with whom Elsa wished to reconnect. She had stood firm, though, and not explained to any but Anna that it had been that very reserved nature which had intrigued her. After all, they should have that in common.

The rest of the formalities of greeting were done at speed, as rain was coming in again. Elsa could have turned it to snow, but there were not really anything to be done about stopping it altogether. Snow might be marginally more pleasant, though.

"My father, Stoick the Vast, leader of our tribe, and Skullcrusher the Rumblehorn," Hiccup said, indicating a huge man with a truly remarkable beard and a horned helmet, then the heavy-set green and red dragon behind him. "Gobber the Belch and Grump the Hobblegrunt; Fishlegs Ingerman, soon to be writer of the new dragon manual, and Meatlug the Gronckle, behind him; Astrid Hofferson, First Lady of Dragons, and Stormfly the Deathly Nadder..." and on it went, introducing both the person and their dragon. 

It soon occured to Elsa that she would have to try to write this down in the evening to make sure that she did not lose track of who was whom. She did, however, note quickly that Fishlegs was going to be important to speak to, if he was the one working on a list of the known dragons.

After that, it was rather disappointing to introduce her own people, without dragons being involved. She had an odd urge to introduce the horses instead, but refrained.

 

 

The Great Hall turned out to be a lot smaller with the windows open and various dragons poking in their heads from time to time. Although most of them could be persuaded to stay outside, Toothless absolutely refused, and Hiccup eventually sighed and said that if they wanted the roof to stay intact, it would be best to just let him in. He was now curled up in front of the fire, snoring occasionally, whilst Elsa did her best to hold level conversation while another, far smaller, dragon was dribbling on Anna's lap.

"That's... not... flammable, is it?" said Elsa finally, pointing out the dragon. Anna was stroking the back of its neck, and it was murmuring to itself in response. Even if it was a little cross-eyed.

Hiccup looked over and grinned. "No, it'll be fine. That's a Terrible Terror. Despite the name, they're not too bad. Except around fish. They get possessive."

The dragon was a sort of purple, with gold fringes and wings, and at only a couple of feet long was too small to be effectively kept outside.

"They're pretty friendly," said Hiccup.

"They're a Stoker class, shot limit five, venom twelve," added Fishlegs. He seemed to have an almost eidetic memory for details and facts about the various dragon classes, even if he had a tendency to blurt out fragments of sentences at a time. "The eggs explode on hatching. They form swarms of up to two hundred at a time. _Very_ quick to train."

Elsa paused for a moment to take in all of the information, then nodded and smiled. "Good to know, thank you. Is that one trained?"

"Mostly," Hiccup admitted. "It wasn't really bright enough to completely..."

The Terror attempted to roll over, probably wanting its belly scratched, and fell off Anna's lap with an offended yelp. Toothless looked over from the fireplace and gave a distinctly amused chuff.

"Trained," he finished.

 

 

"There's nothing like flying," said Hiccup. Toothless was bounding around in the snow behind him enthusiastically, nosing into snowbanks and then shaking the snow off himself again. Hiccup was wearing a harness and holding a second one in his hands. "It is amazing."

Of the two guards accompanying them, one was looking dubious and the other was looking outright afraid of the dragons in the courtyard. Hiccup and Astrid had their dragons with them, whilst Elsa, Anna, and the Terror that seemed to have adopted Anna, were examining them.

Anna grabbed hold of her arm. Her eyes were glittering with mischief, and Elsa could guess exactly what was coming. "Come on! We have to!"

"Oh no," said Elsa. "No offence, but the dragons _know_ them. We don't know how dangerous—“

"We'll be with you," said Astrid. "These guys can carry two, no problems."

"I'll go first," pleaded Anna.

Hiccup was just giving Elsa this faintly amused look. As if he knew that he didn't have to join in the persuasion, not while Anna was doing the puppy dog eyes and Astrid was giving a confident, everything-will-be-fine smirk. He did, however, hold up the harness slightly.

"I am _not_ letting my baby sister-"

"Oh, honestly..."

"-do anything that-"

"Then you come with me," offered Hiccup. It was perfectly timed, and Elsa raised her eyebrows at him. He looked unrepentant at the idea. "Toothless likes you, and he can be funny about people. And Anna just seems to have a knack with dragons."

He gestured to the Terrible Terror currently pottering around Anna's feet. Apparently she had fed it a chocolate that first evening, and won its heart in one fell swoop.

There was only one way this was going to end. Queen or not, Elsa was outnumbered, and considering one of those was her sister she had no chance. She sighed, but then laughed. "Fine, we'll go flying."

 

 

Flying was amazing.

Unfortunately, it was also utterly terrifying.

There was snow in the air around them and ice in Hiccup's hair, but either he didn't notice or he was too polite to comment. Elsa could hear gleeful whooping somewhere behind and below them that could only be Anna, but was busier clinging to Hiccup's waist and trying not to think about how improbably far below them the ground was.

"What do you think?" Hiccup called over his shoulder.

Elsa did not make a sound, mostly because she suspected that if she did it would turn out to be a most unregal one. Instead she gathered herself just enough to loosen her grip on Hiccup slightly, and look over at the mountains instead of directly down.

"He can go faster. But that gets a bit extreme."

This was quite fast enough. Elsa dared a look over her shoulder to see that Astrid and Anna were now flying _upside down_ , with Anna stretching her arms above - or, well, below - her head and giving one long, delighted scream.

"Anna!" Elsa snapped upright, one hand stretching out towards her sister. "What are you _doing_?!"

She felt Hiccup twist round to look as well, then he laughed. "Yeah, Astrid likes that trick. Toothless, don't you _dare_ roll."

Toothless gave a faintly plaintive rumble, and for a moment Elsa honestly thought that they were going to do some ridiculous trick, but instead they banked smoothly around and came so that they were directly underneath the other dragon.

And... okay. This was fairly amazing.

Luckily, Hiccup was also polite enough to not mention that she had temporarily frozen her skirt to his legs. It went mostly unnoticed when Anna got tangled in her harness and fell off Stormfly, anyway.

 

 

They found a new game completely by accident. Elsa would shoot chips off ice into the air, high and fast, while Toothless wheeled back and forth blasting them with sharp, precise jets of fire.

"We should figure out a way to do this with something else," said Hiccup. "Like... targets, somehow. Fire them into the air for him."

"He does seem to be enjoying himself," said Elsa. She flicked another two icy discs into the air, and Toothless blasted one then seemed to somersault in the air to hit the other one.

Hiccup laughed. "He can manage a bit of flight be himself, with the prosthetic. Needs a rider to go high, though."

Even in flight, agile and beautiful, there was an air of danger about Toothless that Elsa felt all too painfully aware of. "How... how were you not afraid of him?" she said.

He shrugged. "I was sort of afraid. But... it was because I didn't know anything about him, you know? And that's a fear you can handle, by getting to know it."

His eyes never moved from the dragon twisting and soaring above them. Toothless was joined by a couple of Terrible Terrors, but he hit every one of the chips of ice before they got anywhere near to them. They seemed more to be handicaps than anything else. Elsa wondered whether Hiccup was even aware of what else his words could mean, but from the way that he was smiling gently - almost parentally - in Toothless's direction, he probably didn't.

"Brave," said Elsa.

"Eh... probably stupid," replied Hiccup.

"I'd take stupid over afraid any day."

One of the Terrors managed to bump into Toothless in mid-air, and was rewarded with a grumpy sound for its trouble. Hiccup produced some dried fish from his pocket and whistled; Toothless's ears perked up, he looked round, and in a flash he was on the ground next to them. He licked his lips, teeth appearing as he snatched the fish from Hiccup's hand and gulped it down.

Elsa shook her head. "You know, I am somewhat surprised that you still have all of your fingers."

"I must not taste as good as Gobber. Say, did I hear you say something about trolls the other day?"

"Yes..." she said warily.

"Please, be sure to tell Gobber that they're real. It will make his week."

Sometimes, it was better not to ask.

"Oh," added Hiccup, "and can you clear up the sock thing for him? He thinks they steal them. _But only the left ones,_ " he added, in a remarkable imitation of the older man.

Somehow, after everything else, the image of trolls in socks was what made Elsa finally give up and start laughing. Toothless looked at her like she was losing her mind, then wriggled over and put his head on her ankles. He gave a contented rumble, and curled his tail around himself.

"He's really taken to you," said Hiccup.

Elsa reached down to scratch the dragon just behind the ear. "Well, I'm very flattered. And, I noticed, the salmon. We can arrange for some of that to go back with you."

"That," said Hiccup, "would be marvellous."

Toothless huffed his perfectly-timed agreement. Well, it was good to know what part of Arendelle he was most attached to, Elsa supposed.

 

 

They sent off the Berk delegation with five barrels of the best Arendelle salmon and two of lutefisk, which turned out to be as good as dragonnip for calling down dragons of all sorts. And, somehow, Gobber. But Stoick just sort of shrugged at that one.

“It’s been a pleasure to spend time in your Kingdom, Your Majesty,” he said, bowing. Elsa discreetly stepped back out of the range of his helmet.

“Likewise, Lord Stoick,” she said. She had still yet to settle on exactly what his title was supposed to be, as none of the Vikings actually seemed sure either. “It has been a pleasure to make the acquaintance of your countrymen. And country... dragons.”

Anna just about suppressed a giggle at that.

“Aye, Your Majesty.”

“And you’re quite certain that you’re happy for...” she gestured to the dragon curled around Anna’s shoulders.

“Røyk,” said Anna.

“Røyk - to stay here?”

“Fishlegs gave you the guide on looking after Terrors, didn’t he?” said Stoick, glancing over to the young man. Fishlegs nodded quickly. “Well, there you go. That one’s a male, so there’ll be no eggs to worry about.” He went to continue, then seemed to realise that he had just talked about dragon breeding in front of the Queen of Arendelle, and went abruptly tongue-tied.

Elsa smiled. “Very well. I certainly hope that the whole of Arendelle will be able to handle one dragon.” It managed to get him to chuckle, and she extended her hand to him. He wiped his own palm on his shirt before – very gently – shaking her hand. It was done with the delicacy that very large men often used. “And thank you,” her eyes shifted to Hiccup. “Again... and always.”


End file.
